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In a recent paper, Dr. Martin Livingston (1996) introduced the term nondifficult to describe a category of patients who, in contrast to so-called “difficult” patients (Brandchaft and Stolorow, 1988), present “no threats to the analyst's identity, organizing principles, or sanity” (Livingston, 1996, p. 142) in the course of psychoanalytic treatment. These are patients who have been generally neglected in the literature and are usually ignored in supervisory sessions. Their treatment tends to meander along, often for extended periods of time, with both therapist and patient ostensibly content to meet week after week, month after month, with the therapist often feeling bored, and occasionally wondering whether any changes are really occurring, but unable or unwilling to do anything that might disrupt the mutual security that this type of therapy situation provides.
As analysts, weary from our all-too-frequent stressful encounters with “difficult” patients, managed care representatives, and often the significant people of our personal lives as well, we can all identify with the experience of welcoming the respite offered by a “nondifficult” patient. After a while, however, we may become aware of a sense of boredom